Cisco N2K-C2232TM-E-10GE Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

• Core enhanced advantages: 32 MB large dynamic shared packet buffer, lossless FCoE fabric uplink transmission up to 3000 meters, user-configurable buffer partitioning, per-port ingress/egress queue limits and expanded diagnostic counters for burst traffic troubleshooting
• Dual airflow support: Port-side intake (blue handle) or port-side exhaust (red handle) power and fan FRUs to match any hot/cold aisle rack layout; airflow direction must be consistent across all power and fan modules to avoid thermal protection shutdown
• Fixed 4:1 maximum oversubscription ratio: 320 Gbps aggregate host bandwidth vs 80 Gbps total fabric uplink bandwidth
• Carrier-grade redundant hardware: Hot-swappable dual AC power supplies and dual fan trays for non-stop production operation

2. Part Number Suffix Breakdown & Hardware Differentiation

Full PN Breakdown

1. N2K: Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extender product family
2. C2232TM-E-10GE: 1RU high-density enhanced copper FEX chassis model
   • 32 × auto-sensing 1/10GBASE-T RJ45 copper host ports
   • T = 10GBASE-T copper interfaces;M = Multiple 8×10G SFP+ fabric uplinks;E = Enhanced large buffer & long-distance FCoE architecture; **10GE = All ports natively support wire-speed 10G Ethernet and lossless FCoE transportManualsLib
3. No fixed airflow preset: Power supply and fan trays are ordered separately to define chassis cooling direction

Key Hardware Gap vs Standard N2K-C2232TM-10GE

Factory Bare Chassis Included Hardware

1. 1RU standard 19-inch EIA horizontal rack-mount passive chassis
2. Rear panel fixed port bank:
   • 32 × auto-negotiating 1/10GBASE-T RJ45 copper host ports; lossless FCoE transmission supported over CAT6a/CAT7 cabling up to 30 meters
   • 8 × yellow-labeled SFP+ 10G fabric uplink ports dedicated to parent switch interconnection
3. Front panel redundant FRU slots: Dual AC power supply bays, dual hot-swappable fan tray slots
4. Integrated status LED indicators: Global system health, power supply fault, fan fault, per-port link/activity, UID rack locator beacon
5. Standard 19-inch rack mounting rails, front cable management brackets, hardware installation & global safety compliance documentation

Items Not Included (Must Be Ordered Separately)

• Hot-swappable AC power supplies (single PSU for basic operation, dual PSUs for N+1 power redundancy; airflow matched to fan trays)
• Hot-swappable fan trays (single fan for basic operation, dual fans for redundant cooling; airflow must align with power supplies)
• SFP+ transceivers, Twinax copper DAC cables, active AOC and FET-10G fabric extender transceivers for eight 10G fabric uplink ports (SR/LR/ER optical or short-range passive copper)
• Optional accessories: Lockable front door, air filter panel, cable management guides, serial console rollover cable

Supported Parent Switch Platforms

3. Hardware Port & Slot Layout

Rear Panel Fixed Ports

1. 32 × 1/10GBASE-T RJ45 Host Ports
   Auto-sensing 1G/10G copper interfaces compliant with IEEE 802.3an 10GBASE-T and IEEE DCB lossless standards (802.1Qbb PFC, 802.1Qaz ETS) to carry lossless FCoE storage traffic over CAT6a/CAT7 cabling with maximum 30-meter reach. All Layer 2, SAN and security policies are enforced centrally on the parent switch, not the FEX itself.
2. 8 × SFP+ 10G Fabric Uplink Ports (Yellow Labeled)
   Wire-speed 10G Ethernet/FCoE uplinks for fabric connectivity to the upstream parent switch. Supports SFP+ optical transceivers, passive Twinax DAC cables and dedicated FET-10G fabric extender transceivers. All eight uplinks can be bundled into LACP port-channels for load balancing and full link failure redundancy. The enhanced buffer architecture enables lossless FCoE over up to 3km fiber uplinks between FEX and parent switch.

Front Panel Redundant FRU Slots

1. Two independent hot-swappable AC power supply bays (N+1 redundant deployment supported)
2. Two independent hot-swappable fan tray slots (dual-fan redundancy eliminates single cooling point of failure)

Front Panel LED Status Array

4. Hardware Performance Specifications

1. Total host port capacity: 32×10G wire-speed downlink ports, total 320 Gbps aggregate host bandwidth
2. Fabric uplink bandwidth: 8×10G full-duplex uplinks, total 80 Gbps aggregate upstream bandwidth
3. Fixed oversubscription ratio: 4:1 (320G host / 80G uplink bandwidth)
4. Full-duplex switching capacity: 160 Gbps; wire-speed forwarding throughput: 595 Mpps (64-byte minimum frame size)
5. Dynamic shared packet buffer: 32 MB user-configurable shared buffer, optimized for heavy bursty storage, big-data and virtualization traffic
6. VLAN support: Up to 4094 standard IEEE 802.1Q VLANs, configured and managed exclusively on the parent switch
7. Port-channel scaling: Supports up to 8 physical host ports per LACP host port-channel / vPC trunk
8. Zero-touch provisioning: Automatic firmware synchronization, configuration download and bulk upgrades triggered from the parent switch singleinstall allcommand
9. Enhanced hardware offload & lossless features (controlled by parent NX-OS):
   • IEEE DCB standards (PFC Priority Flow Control, ETS Enhanced Transmission Selection) for lossless FCoE storage transport
   • Extended no-drop pause frame support for fabric uplinks up to 3000 meters
   • Custom shared buffer partitioning and per-port ingress/egress queue limit tuning exclusive to the -E variant
   • Expanded debug counters for traffic drop, buffer utilization and burst latency troubleshooting
   • vPC dual-homing, PVLAN private VLAN, MSTP spanning tree, QoS traffic classification
   • VNTag virtual machine-aware traffic tagging for virtualized server environments

Physical & Environmental Parameters

• Form Factor: 1 RU (4.37 cm height), standard 19-inch horizontal rack mount
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 43.7 mm × 439.4 mm × 449.6 mm (1.72 × 17.3 × 17.7 inches)
• Fully loaded chassis weight (dual PSUs + dual fans + transceivers): ~8.4 kg (18.5 lbs)
• Operating temperature range: 0°C ~ 40°C (32°F ~ 104°F); certified altitude up to 3,000 meters
• Storage temperature range: -40°C ~ 70°C (-40°F ~ 158°F)
• Operating relative humidity: 8%–80% non-condensing; storage humidity 5%–95% non-condensing
• Compliance Certifications: FCC Class A, UL 60950-1, CE, VCCI Class A, NEBS Level 3, GR63 seismic compliance, RoHS 6 validated

AC Power Supply FRU Specifications (Sold Separately)

• Input: Universal 90–264V AC, 50–63Hz
• Typical full-load power consumption: 280W with all 32 host ports active
• Hot-swappable OIR replacement, supports N+1 redundant power deployment

5. NX-OS Feature Set (Managed Centrally on Parent Switch)

Layer 2 Ethernet & Converged FCoE Fabric

• Single centralized management plane; all FEX ports appear as logical HIF (Host Interface) interfaces on the parent NX-OS switch
• 802.1Q VLAN tagging, PVLAN private VLAN isolation
• MSTP multi-instance spanning tree, vPC dual-active peer-link redundancy for server high availability
• IEEE DCB lossless standards (PFC, ETS) enabling FCoE storage traffic over 10GBASE-T copper host ports up to 30m; extended long-distance FCoE fabric uplink support unique to the -E model
• NPV/NPIV FCoE edge virtualization for unified LAN-SAN data center convergence
• POAP zero-touch automatic provisioning for mass rack FEX deployment
• Port security, static MAC locking to restrict unauthorized server/storage device attachment
• Advanced buffer tuning commands exclusive to N2K-C2232TM-E-10GE for shared buffer partitioning and queue limits

QoS & Traffic Prioritization

• Four hardware priority queues per port (both 10GBASE-T copper and 10G SFP+ fabric uplinks)
• Ingress policing, egress bandwidth shaping to throttle low-priority tape backup and replication traffic
• Pre-built QoS templates optimized for OLTP databases, all-flash NVMe storage, big-data workloads, virtual server farms and tape archives
• DCBX auto-negotiation for lossless FCoE LAN/SAN traffic over copper and fiber interfaces
• Per-port queue limit configuration to prevent buffer starvation for latency-sensitive storage workloads

Monitoring & Automation Tools

• Cisco DCNM centralized converged fabric monitoring, provisioning and REST API automation
• Real-time streaming telemetry: port throughput, latency, frame error counters, SFP optical transmit power, detailed buffer utilization statistics
• Extended debug counters for buffer drops, pause frame events and burst traffic analysis (enhanced -E feature)
• Fault alert notifications via email, syslog and SNMP traps
• GOLD Generic Online Diagnostics for continuous FEX hardware health validation without production traffic interruption
• Unified bulk firmware upgrade: Singleinstall allcommand on parent switch upgrades all attached FEX devices simultaneously

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios for N2K-C2232TM-E-10GE FEX

1. Big-data & distributed storage rack high-density expansion: The 32 MB large buffer absorbs massive traffic bursts from Hadoop, distributed file systems and video rendering clusters, avoiding packet loss on 10G copper server links
2. Enterprise disaster recovery unified LAN/FCoE storage rack: Supports lossless FCoE fabric uplinks up to 3km, enabling remote SAN replication between primary and DR racks without dedicated long-distance SAN extension hardware
3. Virtualized production OLTP database farm aggregation: Fine-grained buffer and queue tuning guarantees consistent low latency for database storage traffic, eliminating burst-induced FCoE drops
4. Medium-to-large virtualized leaf-spine data center copper-heavy ToR expansion: 32-port 10GBASE-T design reuses existing CAT6a cabling infrastructure, with eight 10G uplinks offering flexible oversubscription for mixed general IT and storage workloads
5. Legacy Nexus fabric performance upgrade: Direct replacement for standard N2K-C2232TM-10GE when bursty storage or big-data workloads cause buffer overflow; backward compatible with all existing 10G SFP transceivers and parent switch platforms

7. Standard Package Contents of N2K-C2232TM-E-10GE Bare Chassis SKU

Separately Mandatory Components (Not Included in This Bare Chassis Bundle)

• One or two hot-swappable AC power supplies (dual PSUs recommended for N+1 power redundancy, airflow matched to fan trays)
• One or two matching hot-swappable fan trays (dual fans recommended for cooling redundancy; airflow must align with power supplies to avoid thermal faults)
• SFP+ optical transceivers, Twinax DAC copper cables and FET-10G transceivers for eight 10G fabric uplink ports
• Optional feature software licenses: All fabric, routing and storage features are licensed on the parent upstream Nexus switch, no separate FEX licenses required
• RS232 serial console rollover cable, mini USB console cable, fiber/copper patch cords, rack cable management accessories, lockable front door, air filter panel

Short Commercial Catalog Summary for Quotation